Bigger than a Retina iPad Mini and at the same premium price, SSNLF targets professionals

Galaxy TabPRO 8.4 Review: Business-friendly

Big enough that scanning reports won’t leave you squinting, sharp enough that even small text is legible and with a professional-looking fake leather cladding, the Galaxy TabPRO 8.4 looks the part of a business-friendly tablet.

That 1600 x 2560 pixel display means MultiWindow capability is in play; in this case, two windows can be active simultaneously for multitasking. During the course of my Galaxy TabPRO 8.4 review I found how useful this is, especially the ability to display e-mail in one window instead of constantly flipping out of an app to respond to queries.

Storage of large documents, photos, product manuals or video isn’t an issue since even the 16GB version has a microSD card slot that accepts inexpensive memory cards up to 64GB in capacity.

SSNLF has also packed the tablet with the kinds of apps, features and freebies it hopes will entice professional users and enterprise clients. The the tester I was given by SSNLF for the Galaxy TabPRO 8.4 review included Samsung’s Hancom Office Suite — not quite Microsoft (MSFT) Office, but it’s compatible — 2 years of free remote PC control, 50GB of free Dropbox storage, 6 months of free Cisco (CSCO) Webex, 1 year of free GOGO inflight Wi-Fi, e-meeting screen sharing, Samsung Mobile Print, a free 1-year BusinessWeek subscription, On-Device Encryption, VPN, Samsung KNOX security and a $25 credit to Google Play.

Finally, by supporting the new 802.11 ac Wi-Fi spec (Gigabit Wi-Fi), the Galaxy TabPRO 8.4 one-ups Apple’s current tablet offerings (as well as many other competitors) by being able to take advantage of this lightning-fast new wireless connectivity standard — if it connects to a compatible router (like the Linksys version we reviewed).

In other words, the Galaxy TabPRO 8.4 may be compact, but it has the specs needed to support actual mobile productivity and it’s absolutely packed with the kind of apps, connectivity and security that make it a leading contender for being the best small tablet for professionals.

The only downsides? There is currently no LTE version showing up from SSNLF for road warriors (that’s probably just a matter of time), and more than one Galaxy TabPRO 8.4 review has complained about battery life. I found it middling on that front — less than the “up to 10 hours” SSNLF claims, but still in the 8-hour range.